Fountains of Wayne - Pop storytellers

There's a Hackensack deadbeat pining for a high school crush who since has gone on to become a movie star. There's also the anguished ex-boyfriend stuck in traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge. And who could forget the teenager who can't escape the lust he feels for Stacy's mom?

When Fountains of Wayne takes the stage Sunday night at the Show Me Center, those who attend can look forward to more than a string of cheesy 3 1/2-minute pop songs. In any given FOW show, you can count on an hour or so of humorous, wistful and unforgettable character portraits, brought home by the band's surefire gift for melody.

"We like our songs to have stories," said bassist Adam Schlesinger, who writes the songs with lead singer Chris Collingwood. "But we also like them to be good rock songs. Some of the songs are pure fiction. Others are a bit more autobiographical. We don't have set rules about it."

Most famously, there's the song about the teenage boy who has a crush on his girlfriend's mother, "Stacy's Mom," who's -- as the song puts it -- "got it going on. "Stacy's Mom" is the band's first real hit, ranked as high as No. 6 on Billboard's Top 50 chart.

On the New York quartet's third album, "Welcome Interstate Managers," there are also drunken salesmen, retired airline pilots, pressured quarterbacks, bad waitresses, clip-on ties, cubicle life and exploding cell phones.

And while the stories seem to center on underdogs -- those who seldom get the girl and never get invited to the cool party -- the band has gotten the reputation of being something of the band that speaks for losers.

"I never really got that, that whole loser thing," Schlesinger said, with a hint of annoyance. "I don't think we're losers -- at least we don't see ourselves or our characters as losers. We write about things that happen to real people."

Regardless of the characters, the popularity of "Stacy's Mom" certainly disqualifies FOW from loser status. In addition to the infectious song and kitschy video starring Rachel Hunter, the band is involved in television shows, including performing the theme to Comedy Central's irreverent "Crank Yankers," and the upcoming VH1 series "Hey, Joe."

In between albums, Schlesinger also penned the Oscar-nominated title song from "That Thing You Do!" starring Tom Hanks.

The band has come a long way from the days when Schlesinger and Collingwood teamed up in the late '80s, bonding over their common affection for Beatles-esque pop music.

They formed a short-lived band, went their own ways and then reunited -- with drummer Brian Young and guitarist Jody Porter -- in 1996 as Fountains of Wayne, named for a fountain store in Wayne, N.J.

After two critically acclaimed but commercially disappointing albums, the band was dropped by their record label. So when they were signed by a smaller independent label, they refused to abandon their formula.

"We always try to write records that have a shot at radio play," Schlesinger said. "We're not Sonic Youth. We're writing pop songs. ... But we've never had the attitude that, 'If you don't sell a certain number of records, something must be wrong.'"

But surely now, the band feels gratified by having a legitimate Top 10 contender. Isn't this overdue?

"Overdue is a loaded word," Schlesinger said. "We feel lucky we've been able to do what we've been able to do up until now. I don't know that we've walked around thinking the world has owed us a hit record."

Fountains of Wayne, Schlesinger said, will probably continue to write songs about people while pulling in the listener with a catchy beat. It's nothing to be ashamed of, he maintains.

"Anybody in a band wants to be successful. At the same time, that's not the goal of starting a band. We want to make records we're proud of."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137